UK competition watchdog investigates Meta’s proposed publisher scraping terms

The Competition and Markets Authority has opened an investigation into whether Meta’s proposed commercial terms for business users could unlawfully exploit the company’s market position and harm news publishers, advertisers and other businesses.

The case, brought under the Competition Act 1998, will first establish whether Meta holds a dominant position in a relevant UK market. If it does, the regulator will assess whether requiring businesses to accept the terms amounts to an abuse of that position. The CMA has not decided that Meta has broken the law.

The regulator said it was in urgent discussions with Meta and would continue to scrutinise the proposals while considering its next steps. Sarah Cardell, the CMA’s chief executive, said that companies with a dominant position must not use it “to impose unfair terms”.

The terms would apply to websites linked with business accounts on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads. They would give Meta automated means to index, cache, analyse, retrieve and crawl associated domains, webpages and URLs, potentially allowing it to collect material and use it in its own products, including AI features, without giving businesses a choice over whether or how the material is used.

The CMA is examining whether making publishers and other content businesses accept those conditions could constitute the unlawful imposition of unfair trading terms. Publisher groups argue that the arrangement would leave them choosing between allowing uncompensated use of their work and giving up access to Meta’s audiences.

The News Media Association and the Professional Publishers Association welcomed the investigation. Theo Bamber, the NMA’s chief executive, said publishers faced an “invidious choice” between providing content for Meta’s AI products free of charge or leaving a platform used by millions of Britons for news. The PPA said uses beyond those needed to provide Meta’s services should be licensed on fair terms.

Meta said there were “no grounds” for the investigation. It has maintained that the update was intended to improve the accuracy of information about products sold on third-party websites for advertising and content recommendations, rather than to scrape news sites. The company also said the change did not alter its content-crawling practices and that site owners could use robots.txt to express their preferences.

After the publisher backlash, Meta removed the word “train” from its proposed wording and said scraped material would be used for advertising and business products. Publishers said the revised language could nevertheless encompass Meta’s generative-AI services.

The terms had originally been due to take effect on Oct. 30, before Meta deferred them to Nov. 20 and then paused the rollout pending consultation with industry groups and other stakeholders. Its existing terms remain in force during that process.

The Movement for an Open Web and the NMA were among the groups whose objections prompted the CMA’s action. International publisher organisations also urged regulators to intervene before the original effective date. In Norway, the Oslo District Court separately prevented the terms from taking effect before a legal review, as we reported last week.

If the CMA finds an infringement, it can fine Meta up to 10% of its worldwide annual turnover and order the company to amend or withdraw the terms. A ruling against Meta could also leave it facing follow-on damages claims from affected publishers, creators and other businesses.